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Chapter 4: Subtle Music in Your Soul

The first question:

Osho,How to start the journey? What does it exactly mean to transcend sex?

The journey has already started; you are not to start it. Everybody is already in the journey. We have found ourselves in the middle of it. There is no beginning to it and no end to it. Life is journey. The first thing to be understood is that it has not to be started now. It has always been going on. You are in the journey. This has to be recognized. Unconsciously, you are in the journey: that’s why it feels as if you have to start it. Recognize it, become conscious about it; the very recognition becomes the beginning. The moment you recognize that you are always moving, going somewhere - knowingly, unknowingly, willingly, unwillingly - but you are going . some great force is constantly working within you: God is evolving. He is constantly creating something within you, so it is not how to start it. The right question will be: How to recognize it? It is there, but recognition is not there.

For example, trees die, but they don’t know; birds and animals die, but they don’t know. Only man knows that he has to die. That knowledge is also very cloudy, not clear - and the same is so with life. The birds are alive, but they don’t know that they are alive - because how can you know life if you don’t know death? How can you know that you are alive if you don’t know that you are going to die? Both recognitions come together. They are alive, but they don’t recognize that they are alive. Man recognizes a little that he is going to die, but that recognition remains very cloudy, hidden in deep smoke. And the same is true about life: you are alive, but you don’t know exactly what being alive means. That too is cloudy, not clear.

When I say recognition, I mean becoming alert to what this life energy is, that is already on the way. To become aware of one’s own being is the beginning of the journey. To come to a point where you are so absolutely alert that not even a fragment of darkness exists around you is the end of the journey. But in fact, the journey never starts and never ends. You will continue even after that but then the journey will have a totally different meaning, a totally different quality to it - it will be sheer delight. Right now it is near misery.

“How to start the journey?” - become more alert about your actions, about your relationships, about your movements. Whatsoever you do - even an ordinary thing like walking on the street - try to become alert, try to take steps with full awareness.